Is there an async version of DirectoryInfo.GetFiles / Directory.GetDirectories in dotNet?

Question

Is there an asynchronous version of DirectoryInfo.GetFiles / Directory.GetDirectories in dotNet? I'd like to use them in an F# async block, and it'd be nice to have a version that can be called with AsyncCallbacks.

Problem is I'm trying to suck in a bunch of directories, probably on SMB mounts over slow network connections, and I don't want a bunch of thread pool threads sitting around waiting for network reads when they could be doing other work.

Answer 1

No, I don't think there is. The pool thread approach is probably the most pragmatic. Alternatively, I guess you could drop down to P/Invoke - but that would be a lot more work.

Answer 2

I didn't find an async version of GetFiles, however if you look at the sourcecode for other Async operations, they're defined as follows:

module FileExtensions =

        let UnblockViaNewThread f =
            async { //let ctxt = System.Threading.SynchronizationContext.Current
                    do! Async.SwitchToNewThread ()
                    let res = f()
                    do! Async.SwitchToThreadPool ()
                    //do! Async.SwitchTo ctxt
                    return res }

        type System.IO.File with
            static member AsyncOpenText(path)   = UnblockViaNewThread (fun () -> System.IO.File.OpenText(path))
            static member AsyncAppendText(path) = UnblockViaNewThread (fun () -> System.IO.File.AppendText(path))
            static member AsyncOpenRead(path)   = UnblockViaNewThread (fun () -> System.IO.File.OpenRead(path))
            static member AsyncOpenWrite(path)  = UnblockViaNewThread (fun () -> System.IO.File.OpenWrite(path))
            static member AsyncOpen(path,mode,?access,?share) =
                let access = match access with Some v -> v | None -> System.IO.FileAccess.ReadWrite
                let share = match share with Some v -> v | None -> System.IO.FileShare.None
                UnblockViaNewThread (fun () -> System.IO.File.Open(path,mode,access,share))

            static member OpenTextAsync(path)   = System.IO.File.AsyncOpenText(path)
            static member AppendTextAsync(path) = System.IO.File.AsyncAppendText(path)
            static member OpenReadAsync(path)   = System.IO.File.AsyncOpenRead(path)
            static member OpenWriteAsync(path)  = System.IO.File.AsyncOpenWrite(path)
            static member OpenAsync(path,mode,?access,?share) = System.IO.File.AsyncOpen(path, mode, ?access=access, ?share=share)

In other words, the Async file, streamreader, and WebClient operations are just wrappers around the syncronous operations, so you should be able to write your own wrapper around GetFiles/GetDirectories as follows:

module IOExtensions =
    type System.IO.Directory with
        static member AsyncGetFiles(directory) = async { return System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(directory) }
        static member AsyncGetDirectories(path) = async { return System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories(path) }

Answer 3

This may be considered a bit of a hack, but you might consider using the UWP StorageFolder API.

C# example (though F# is probably just as easy):

using Windows.Storage;

...

var folder = await StorageFolder.GetFolderFromPathAsync(path);
var files = await folder.GetFilesAsync();
var folders = await folder.GetFoldersAsync();

You can easily consume these from traditional .NET desktop and console applications by using the UWP for Desktop library by Lucian Wischik (of Microsoft).

Install-Package UwpDesktop